Tatum Redmond was overjoyed when she and her family moved into their new home in Cape Town’s Brooklyn suburb 10 years ago.
It meant she was only five minutes from her work at a local school and made her one of the lucky few to benefit from a housing programme that is battling to accommodate Cape Town’s working class. Yet for those still hoping for a home like Redmond’s, the housing programme is teetering on collapse, according to one expert.
“I felt like this was my moment and I think I was the happiest person that day when I received the news [that my housing application was successful],” says Redmond. “We had a lot of joy. We were extremely excited and couldn’t wait to move in.”
“It took a lot of pressure off us because [before] we were living in a small little room and we really needed our own space and just somewhere we could call home. Sometimes you’re desperate for a home, you’re desperate just to have a shelter and maybe you started a new job and you want to move away from the environment where you’re at.”
Redmond says two of the most important elements for South Africans to strive for are housing and education, but there are still hundreds of thousands of people on the housing waiting list — and that’s in Cape Town alone.
The Western Cape government says households earning between R1,850 and R22,000 gross monthly income qualify for social housing.
“The development and management of social housing is undertaken by accredited social housing institutions or other delivery agents. To qualify a person needs to meet a range of criteria set out by the Social Housing Act and social housing regulatory authority,” according to the Western Cape government.
The province lists 10 housing developments, including the Drommedaris development where Redmond lives.
One of the most complex parts of housing is releasing municipal land for it. A study, released this year by the Development Action Group (DAG), shows how convoluted it can be. “Releasing Municipal Land for Affordable Housing” focuses on Joburg, Cape Town, eThekwini and Tshwane.
“While numerous government policies have advocated urban integration and spatial transformation since 1994, progress on the ground has been limited,” says the report.
Nick Budlender, a researcher at housing advocacy organisation Ndifuna Ukwazi, says that while some progress has been made, more could be done to speed up delivery. “Some pieces of public land that were committed for social housing as far back as 2008 remain undeveloped today. The reasons for these endless delays are complicated.”
Budlender tells the FM that the biggest barrier to progress is a severe funding bottleneck that prevents dozens of projects from moving forward.
“The national department of human settlements needs to intervene urgently and provide funding to these projects because the uncertainties and delays are now jeopardising the future of the social housing sector as a whole.”
He says decades of work have gone into getting the housing programme up, but this progress means nothing without the money. Without funding, he says, no housing projects can be developed. “[That] means the government would have no means of providing poor and working-class residents with access to well-located areas.
“Social housing is the only government programme that specifically targets well-located areas and the reversal of spatial apartheid. That it is not being adequately supported or funded, despite a better spending record than many other government housing programmes, has placed the entire social housing sector in jeopardy.
“The lack of funding and other forms of support means the social housing sector is at serious risk of collapse, jeopardising years of progress, the security of current tenants and the ability of the government to do anything to reverse spatial apartheid,” says Budlender.
Moegsiena Adams has been on the housing waiting list for more than 25 years. After being evicted from her home in Woodstock where she had lived all her life, she moved into the old Woodstock Hospital, now renamed Cissie Gool House after the Cape Town activist and champion of the poor.
Woodstock Hospital was occupied in 2017 by the Reclaim the City movement. It demanded affordable housing be built in Cape Town. The building, initially owned by the province but later transferred to the city, had been standing empty for years. Many of the occupiers are on the housing waiting list.
“When I moved in here, this place was vandalised. We had to fix everything ... broken lights, windows, we did what we could. I had nowhere else to go,” says Adams, who also looks after her disabled son, an outpatient at Groote Schuur Hospital.
Adams says the occupants of Cissie Gool House have created a community garden, a school and an over-60s club. About 900 people call it home. Many of the people living there had been evicted and had nowhere else to go.
“I went to the council many times and every time they said there’s nothing yet,” she says. “I hope something is going to be done and maybe I will not even be here to see it happening because I'm living on borrowed time now. When you get to over 70 you must thank God every day for what you have. So we must think about our children.
“Why don’t they start building here? There’s so much open space. Why must you go and live on the outskirts? Our people really need housing. It has been like this for years. So what are they going to do about it?”
Jennifer Williams also lives at Cissie Gool House and has been on the housing waiting list for more than 32 years.
“Give people a place to stay,” she says. “We are not getting any younger. The city needs to understand this.” The rising cost of living makes social and affordable housing even more of an urgent need, she says.
Williams says there is a need for affordable and transitional housing.
Carl Pophaim, the city’s mayoral committee member for human settlements, says the city is a pioneer in “progressive land release and packaging for affordable housing opportunities near urban centres around the metro”.
“It is seen by many organisations, even among lobby groups, as one of the most progressive governments in South Africa, especially as it pertains to land and development packaging to unlock social and affordable housing.”
He says the Woodstock Hospital property, with a potential residential development yield of about 500 units, made up of open market and social housing, will be released subject to the provision of affordable housing.
Pophaim says the city will “conduct engagements with the occupants as part of the broad public participation process to be undertaken for the disposal of the property. The response for the existing occupants will be dependent on the socioeconomic profile of the households. The city intends to engage the households on the options available to them to determine the appropriate response for each household in terms of council policy and legislation.”
Deputy minister of human settlements Tandi Mahambehlala told parliament recently that housing programmes were pivotal in creating inclusive and integrated communities.
“We have developed over 300,000 social housing units through partnerships with other institutions,” she says. “These initiatives have revitalised urban areas, reduced informal settlements, and provided quality housing near economic opportunities, improving living standards and fostering social cohesion and inclusivity. Infrastructure development is the backbone of sustainable human settlements.”
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